When the Falklands Conflict began it seemed
like Argentina had a massive advantage in the skies.

They had over 100 aircraft of varying types.

Some could operate from the Argentinian mainland
and others could operate from airstrips on the Falklands themselves.

Meanwhile, the British Task Force was initially
restricted to the just 20 Sea Harriers which could fit on its two aircraft carriers.

It was up to them to protect the Task Force
at sea as well as the troops on the ground.

To many that seemed like an impossible task.

In this 3rd episode of our Falklands series,
we’re going to examine the conflict in the air.

Just how big was the Argentinian advantage? How did each side change their strategy? And how did British pilots beat the odds and
take control of the skies? On paper, Argentina had air supremacy over
the Falkland Islands.

Britain would need a superb, high performance,
fixed-wing fighter aircraft if there was to be any attempt to counter the Argentinian
advantage.

It was the aircraft behind me, the Harrier,
and its naval cousin the Sea Harrier, upon which British hopes were placed, but we’ll
take a closer look at that later on.

As the British Task Force made its way to
the South Atlantic, the Argentinians began setting up defences on the islands with men
and supplies continually flown in.

The main airport was at Stanley, the Falklands
capital, with other smaller airfields at Goose Green and Pebble Island.

Stanley was the only hard all-weather runway
on the Falklands, but it was still not long enough for Argentina’s fast jets which remained
on the mainland.

The Argentinian Air Force had Dassault Mirage
IIIs, IAI Daggers, Douglas A4 Skyhawks and even English Electric Canberras, purchased
from the British in the 1970s.

The supersonic Mirages and Daggers were a
serious threat but flying from the Argentinian mainland put them at the limits of their fuel
range.

The Argentinian Navy had an aircraft carrier,
the Veinticinco de Mayo, which was also equipped with Skyhawks.

While from the mainland they
flew the Dassault-Breguet Super Étendard which could be equipped with the feared Exocet anti-ship missile, five
of which were known to be in Argentina’s armoury.

The Argentinians also had a number of smaller
light attack aircraft based on airfields on the Falklands, as well as IA-58 Pucaras, like
the one behind me.

It was a two-seat, low-wing, twin-turboprop,
ground-attack and counter-insurgency aircraft.

It had two cannons, four machine guns, and
bombs and rockets could be attached to three external hardpoints.

It was low performance, in comparison to the
Mirage especially, but it was manoeuvrable and could take-off from short, rough airfields
– perfect for the Falklands.

This aircraft joined Grupo Aerea Tres de Ataque,
or ‘Attack Group 3’, at Port Stanley on 29 May 1982, piloted by First Lieutenant Ayerdi.

It carried out various armed escort missions
for Chinook helicopters and, on 10 June was involved in an attack on Mount Kent on East
Falkland.

In the face of all these Argentinian aircraft,
it was crucial that Britain established air superiority before attempting to land ground
troops on the Falklands.

The first step was eliminating the Island’s
most important airfield at Stanley.

Denying its use would not only demonstrate
Britain’s will to fight for the Falklands, but also force a change of strategy for the
Argentinians.

But pulling off that raid would be a very
difficult job.

A bomber would have to fly over 3,800 miles
from Ascension Island to Stanley with multiple air to air refuelling manoeuvres on the way,
damage the runway enough to deny its use, and then fly all the way back to Ascension.

This was the aircraft they chose for the job,
the Avro Vulcan B2.

A jet-powered, high-altitude strategic bomber
designed to carry Britain’s nuclear weapons during the Cold War.

The Vulcan had two defining characteristics
which were suddenly in demand.

iIs long-range capability which could be extended
through refuelling, and its ability to carry 21 x 1000lb bombs.

This particular Vulcan was delivered to IWM
Duxford just one month before the Falklands Conflict began, by a pilot called Martin Withers.

The Ministry of Defence actually asked if
they could have the aircraft back, but the museum managed to persuade them otherwise.

One thing they probably did take was the fuel
probe and for very good reason.

At the time, the Vulcan raid on Port Stanley
would become the longest-range bombing mission in the history of aerial warfare, codenamed
the ‘Black Buck’ raid.

Just before midnight on 30 April 1982 2 Vulcan
bombers and 11 Victor tankers took off from Wideawake airfield on Ascension Island.

Almost immediately the lead Vulcan suffered
a technical difficulty that meant the reserve Vulcan, XM607 flown by Martin Withers, had
to take over instead.

Over the next 8 hours, the Victor Tankers
completed a complex sequence of fuel transfers to the Vulcan, and to each other.

This process was not without its issues, but
on the morning of May 1st they reached the target.

The Vulcan crew dropped its payload of 21
x 1000lb bombs from 10,000 feet.

One bomb cratered the runway, and the others
caused further damage to the airfield.

A few hours later, Sea Harriers from HMS Hermes
followed up with more attacks on the airstrips at Stanley and Goose Green.

Later still, XM607 arrived safely back at
Ascension after 16 hours in the air.

The Black Buck raid on 1 May would be the
first of seven Black Buck raids over the course of May and June 1982 (two were cancelled).

The short-term and long-term success of these
raids is still debated, with contention as to whether the cost of resources, in terms
of the number of aircraft and amount of fuel used for instance, alongside the risk involved
for the people in the air and on the ground, could ever be justified when assessing the
arguably limited impact of the missions.

But while its physical impact is debated,
its tactical impact is clear.

The raid on 1 May demonstrated that the Royal
Air Force had the range to bomb airfields in the Falklands, and therefore had the potential
to reach mainland Argentina.

In response to that threat, Argentina decided
to hold more of its fast jets back to protect the mainland.

The following day things got worse when the
Argentinian cruiser General Belgrano was sunk by the submarine HMS Conqueror.

This forced the Argentinian Navy, including
the Veinticinco de Mayo, to largely withdraw to port.

The Argentinian surface fleet would play no
further role in the rest of the conflict.

In the first air to air battles over the Falklands
the British refused to climb to the Mirage’s optimal altitude and vice versa.

When they eventually engaged the Argentinians
lost two Mirages and a Canberra, all shot down by British Sea Harriers.

In addition to their fuel problems Argentinian
pilots also lacked experience.

They were more prepared for a war with Chile
than fighting over the South Atlantic.

Meanwhile, on the ground, Argentinian aircrews
struggled to service their aircraft with spare parts hard to come by.

That first day was absolutely crucial in the
extent that it was it almost set the pattern for all subsequent operations.

It gave us enormous confidence.

Looked at from the other way around I think
the demoralizing effect on the Argentine Air Force must have been colossal.

Now that pattern happily
I’m glad to say continued.

They decided they would retain a number of
aircraft in defence of their airfields ashore.

Had they actually committed more aircraft
to deal with the combat air patrol over the landing area perhaps it would have been different? From this point onwards Argentina essentially
tried to avoid air to air combat with the Harriers, using Mirages as decoys to draw
them off while their Daggers and Skyhawks attack the fleet.

It seemed Argentina’s air power wasn’t
all it was cracked up to be.

That was until the 4th of May when HMS Sheffield
came under attack from a pair of Argentinian Super Etendards.

It was hit by one of two Exocet missiles and
later sank, for the British this was a stark warning.

The loss of an aircraft carrier to an Exocet
would end any chance of success for the British Task Force As a consequence, the British carriers
predominantly remained well out of their range to the east of the Falklands for the remainder
of the conflict.

However, by increasing the distance they had
to fly, this reduced the amount of time the Harriers could spend over the islands, leaving
ships and ground forces more exposed.

On the 21st of May, the first British landings
began on the Falklands.

To minimise the still considerable air threat,
the British chose to land at San Carlos on East Falkland.

It was hoped that the hills around the bay
would provide sheltered waters from air attack, but that didn’t stop the Argentinians from
trying.

British ships were attacked by Pucaras, Skyhawks,
Mirages and Daggers over the next few days, but it was the Skyhawks that would become
the most feared silhouette as the British forces could see the aircraft’s impressive
manoeuvrability against the sky from the ships below.

Few Argentinian pilots had even been trained
in low-level flying, and fewer still in the ability to undertake attacks on ships in open
water.

Having flown for hours from mainland Argentina
they only had the chance to engage in a few attacks before heading home again.

But despite all of that they still managed
to achieve significant damage, all the while under fire themselves from the ships below,
and from Sea Harriers.

We persuaded the flight commanders it’d be
a good idea to stay on the ship.

Of course, we never realised that that was
the biggest mistake of our lives.

Because everybody on shore was watching the
ships getting hit.

They used to break the masts, the aerials
of the ship the pilots as they were flying so low.

We thought at first that the Argentinian Air
Force were mad, but as time went on we changed our views drastically.

They were very professional in the way they
conducted their business.

They came down San Carlos water the first
one just got blown straight out the sky three missiles hit it.

Their pilots were possibly some of the bravest
men over the whole campaign.

I mean if everything they dropped and gone
off would still be down there fighting now.

Fortunately for the British,
many of the Argentinian bombs failed to explode due to problems with the setting of their fuses.

Essentially, the aircraft were flown at a
height lower than the fuses had been set so the bombs hit their target before they had
the chance to explode.

If there hadn’t been this issue with the
bomb fuses, the losses at San Carlos Water would have been catastrophic.

By 25 May 1982, three ships had sunk, and
8 more were damaged.

However, the Argentinian decision to target
the ships in the Falkland Sound meant that the ground forces were able to land unopposed.

British troops were now just 13 miles from
the Argentinian garrison at Darwin and Goose Green and just 50 miles from Port Stanley.

Despite their successes at San Carlos, the
Argentinian air forces were sustaining losses at an alarming rate, they couldn’t keep
up these kinds of attacks for long.

However, with a limited number of British
aircraft there were inevitably gaps in the Harrier Combat Air Patrols.

That’s exactly what happened on the 8th
of June during the Fitzroy air attacks.

As British troops were moved forward for attacks
on the mountains around Port Stanley, Royal Fleet Auxiliary ships Sir Galahad and Sir
Tristram were attacked.

Both ships were badly damaged by Argentinian
Skyhawks killing 50 men and wounding a further 150.

Argentinian air attacks on the same day sank
a British landing craft, killing six men, and severely damaging HMS Plymouth.

It was in moments like this
that British helicopters became crucial, ferrying casualties to field hospitals or aboard ships.

Since the sinking of the SS Atlantic Conveyor
and the heavy lifting helicopters it was carrying, the remaining helicopters and their crews
were operated at the limits of their capability.

British forces were supported by a range of
helicopters including one surviving Boeing Chinook and the Westland Gazelle, Sea King,
Lynx, Wasp, Scout and Wessex.

Helicopters were the work horses for the British
forces during the Falklands Conflict.

This Wessex helicopter behind me last flew
on 8 December 1980, so did not serve during the Falklands Conflict.

But the Wessex is probably best known for
its exploits in the Falklands.

They helped sink the Argentinian submarine
Santa Fe and recapture South Georgia from Argentinian forces in April 1982.

Towards the end of the conflict in June, a
Wessex 5 fired two AS12 missiles at the Town Hall in Port Stanley with the aim of killing
senior Argentinian commanders inside, but missed, hitting the police station instead.

So, the Wessex had a crucial role that bookended
the conflict.

A week on from the disaster at Fitzroy British
troops would enter Stanley as the Argentinians surrendered.

So just how did the British prevail? How did they overcome the odds in the air? The answer, at least in part, is the Harrier.

One of the Harrier’s key features was its
V/STOL capability which stands for vertical and short take-off and landing.

It was this pioneering design feature that
made it pretty much the only viable option for aerial combat in the Falklands.

GR.

3s were fitted with a Rolls-Royce Pegasus
103 turbofan engine and four nozzles, two either side of the aircraft, that could be
rotated by the pilot.

To achieve V/STOL, the pilot would switch
the direction of the aircraft’s thrust by rotating its nozzles.

The ability to take off and land vertically
would prove invaluable for when operating from the aircraft carriers, especially when
the flight decks were already packed with other aircraft.

The Harrier’s benefits were not just logistical,
it was also an excellent combat aircraft.

The Sea Harriers were primarily employed in
air-to-air combat protecting the task force and ground troops.

While the Harriers were
slower than the Argentinian Mirages and Daggers, they had an important trick up their sleeve: the AIM 9L Sidewinder
air-to-air missile.

Previous air-to-air missiles could only be
fired from directly behind the enemy, the Sidewinder worked regardless of their position
giving British pilots a major advantage.

Those pilots had been testing their dogfighting
skills against the best NATO had to offer for many years, making them a formidable fighting
force.

Together their equipment and training allowed
the British to dominate the air-to-air battle.

Of the 10 Harriers lost during the conflict,
none were due to enemy aircraft.

Argentina lost at least 20 in air combat alone.

I saw these two delta wing shapes low.

I flew through them head-on thinking right
we got to fight here now at last.

Then, as I got through the turn, there was
in the sky in front of this Steve firing the first missile as it exploded a big gout of
flame obscured the whole aircraft.

But at that stage, Steve had already switched
attention to his second Mirage which was some distance ahead and fired the second sidewinder.

And this was really driving my mind crazy
at the time.

It was a wonderful thing to see you know this
is happening it’s terrific.

But while I was thinking like that there was
a third Dagger who was behind me, he was firing his cannons at me.

I then thought christ you know watch a six
o’clock Sharky and I was still in the hard turn the whole time.

When I looked round and there was this Mirage
passing underneath me.

Beautiful colours in camouflage.

All I had to do really was pull down hard
and he didn’t stand a chance because I got in behind him and fired my missile.

The initial 20 British Sea Harriers were joined
by further Sea Harriers and Harrier GR.

3s.

The latter operated by No.

1 Fighter Squadron,
RAF, from the very unfamiliar surroundings of an aircraft carrier.

It was thought that the GR.

3s would be used
as replacements for Sea Harrier losses.

But the losses were so few that they ended
up being predominantly tasked with their classic ground-attack role, striking Argentinian positions
at Darwin and Goose Green and supporting British ground forces around Mount Kent and in the
assault on Port Stanley.

So that the GR.

3s could operate from aircraft
carriers modifications were required, and fast.

Alterations were made to the GR.

3 airframe
and systems.

It was even reported that holes were drilled
in the airframe to allow seawater to run out.

This Harrier GR.

3 operated from a temporary
landing strip established at San Carlos.

This allowed it to respond more rapidly to
attack missions if required and also freed up space on the aircraft carriers.

This Harrier carried out attacks around Port
Stanley and undertook a reconnaissance mission looking for ground-launched Exocet missiles.

It attacked positions on Mount Harriet and
narrowly escaped an Argentinian surface-to-air missile over Mount Longdon which exploded
only 100ft or 30m above the cockpit.

After the conflict, it was transferred back
to the UK and has been at IWM Duxford since 1992.

Wars aren’t fought on paper.

Argentina appeared to have an advantage in
the skies over the Falklands, with superior numbers and closer supply lines.

But in reality, the British advantage in training
and technology made the fight far more even.

Things could have gone much worse for the
British had a carrier been lost or if landing forces had been hit at San Carlos.

But instead, by the final weeks of the conflict,
British Harriers and helicopters dominated the skies over the Falklands.

Of course, the final battle for control would
have to be waged on land.

Make sure you subscribe so you don’t miss
out on our penultimate episode exploring the land battles for the Falklands.